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"Aliens! Give us the power source! Give it to us and we will let you live as our slaves. We will not crush and annihilate you as we will crush and annihilate all the people of this planet!""Power source?""The blue box. That's why they were on the water pump. They think the blue box is a power source."

The Suspicion, published in November 1998 and written by K.A. Applegate, is the twenty-fourth book in the Animorphs series. It is the seventh book narrated by Cassie and the fifth book with Cassie as the sole narrator.

Contents

Plot

Official Description

Cassie, the other Animorphs, and Ax have a few little problems. A few very little problems. Actually, the problems call themselves Helmacrons. They're less than an inch tall, and they're pretty upset at Cassie. They believe she stole their ship. Cassie thought it was just a toy, and gave it to charity. Now the Helmacrons want it back.

So the Animorphs and Ax have a new dilemma. Because the Helmacrons have their own secret weapon: They can shrink other beings down to their size. And, if they don't get their ship back soon, everyone on the planet is in for a little surprise...

Plot Summary

While Rachel tries to convince Cassie to go to the beach with her, Cassie notices what looks like a toy spaceship attached to her water pump. Cassie notes that it's where she hid the Escafil Device, and is a bit unsettled by it, but brushes it off and puts the spaceship with a bunch of other things being donated to charity. They head off to the beach, coming back to find Jake. They notice a different "toy" spaceship attached to the water pump and, while they watch, it detaches itself and flies away. The Animorphs immediately hold a meeting and decide to go to Goodwill to try to retrieve the spaceship that Cassie had seen earlier.

While there, the spaceship starts shooting at them, revealing themselves to be alien conquerors known as Helmacrons, and demand that they surrender and bring them the Escafil Device, which is a power source for them. It flies away and they realize that it is headed back to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic to retrieve the blue box. Since it is a spaceship, it can travel much faster than their bird morphs. Tobias engages in a fight with some of them, with the rest of the Animorphs joining, although the Helmacrons defeat them. The Helmacrons retrieve the box and use it against Tobias, Cassie, and Marco are significantly smaller (about one sixteenth of an inch). Cassie and Marco decide to pretend to surrender to the Helmacrons, while Tobias stays with Rachel. It is revealed that the Helmacron females are in charge, while they demean and delegate males to being submissive slaves. Cassie and Marco claim that they work for the Yeerks (whom the Helmacrons are familiar with and despise), and that Visser Three can get them the box. Eventually they catch up with the Visser, who is at a meeting of The Sharing (along with Chapman and other Controllers).

Cassie in anteater morph.

They morph to flies to escape the ship, now being as small as cells. The Controllers get a lucky shot, and destroy the ship, Cassie and Marco barely getting out in time. They find that they have landed on Chapman's head. The other Helmacron spaceship had lured the rest of the Animorphs there in an attempt to steal the blue box. During the meeting, the Helmacrons attack, indiscriminately shrinking everyone at the meeting. Upon seeing the blue box, along with Visser Three's gentle prodding, all the controllers start trying to grab it and there is lots of chaos. Cassie morphs into a whale in order to crash the ship. She and the other Animorphs eventually end up on Ax who is the only Animorph remaining unshrunken. Visser Three and many Controllers also end up on Ax. Visser Three briefly sides with the Animorphs, saying, "I don't know about you Andalites, but these Helmacrons are really, really, really annoying me." Ax, in harrier morph, flies over to the Gardens where they all acquire and morph anteaters, which unshrinks them while in morph. As anteaters, Jake and Rachel slurp up the Helmacrons, and The Animorphs, Controllers and Helmacrons reach an agreement and everyone is unshrunken. Before the book ends, Marco and Cassie give the Helmacron males a bit of a pep talk, and it ends with the Helmacrons, male and females, squabbling with each other.

Trivia

The cover quote is, "What counts is on the inside. Most of the time...."

The inside cover quote is, "At least it's better than being an ant...."

Marco claims that the situation with the Helmacrons would be like Lethal Weapon 5, the sequel to Lethal Weapon 4. Lethal Weapon 4 was released in the United States on July 10, 1998, meaning that the series at this point takes place post-July 1998.

This is the last book to feature the 'old' Watch Animorphs TV on Nickelodeon logo on the front cover. Books 25-29 do not have any logo, and starting with book 30 (The Reunion), a new one is introduced.

ANIBASE: Orson Watch: If you look very carefully at the crowd observing the anteaters on the stepback of this book, you can make out a cat poking its head between two of the people. The cat is none other than Orson, making one of her many cameo appearances.

The cover morph, of Cassie to anteater, was made into a transforming Taco Bell toy.

Goofs/Inconsistencies

Cassie is worried about Jake seeing her in a bathing suit, citing that Jake is embarrassed because he hadn't seen her wearing one before. However, both Jake and Cassie attended Darlene's party in The Andalite's Gift wearing bathing suits.

Starting from chapter 23 to the end of the book, the names of the two ships, Planet Crusher and Galaxy Blaster, get swapped.

Ax is worried about morphing to human while running away since the Yeerks would realize he has a human morph, only for Rachel to point out that they most likely assume he has one anyways. However, Ax demorphed in front of a crowd at the mall in The Predator while being chased by Yeerk-infested mall cops, meaning that some Yeerks would already be aware that the 'Andalite bandits' possess human morphs.

The Helmacrons reveal that all of the Animorphs, and Visser Three (through Alloran's body) are emitting morphing energy signatures all the time, thus how they are able to distinguish between who is morph-capable and who isn't. However, in The Andalite's Gift, it was revealed that they only emit morphing energy signatures while in the process of morphing or demorphing. Additionally, if they been emitting the energy constantly, the Veleek would not only have found them while they were in their base forms, but it would have attacked the Visser as well.

Gallery

US images

Front cover (with "Watch Animorphs TV on Nickelodeon" logo. This is the last book to have this particular Watch TV logo; a new one was introduced on book 30.)